I have always been a gal who has said that when it comes to boats that size does matter and that the only ones who said differently were guys with teeny, tiny little...dinghies. Well, I take it all back and here is why. Fourteen feet of wet and wild fun!!! Captain Grumpy and I are spending a week in Key Largo at a friend's fabulous condo. This year it came complete with a Sunfish sailboat that the Captain has been itching to try. So yesterday we dragged it down to the water, hauled all the rigging down and actually got it put together with a minimum of fuss. Fortunately Captain Grumpy previous experience with Sunfish was a huge help. I have to admit, I was a little reticent. The bay the condo is on gets some protection from the Gulf winds because of some offshore atolls. Even so, the wind was 10-15 out of the NW and there were whitecaps, although the bay is fairly shallow. Anyway, we got in the water, the rig is up and Captain Grumpy hands me the mainsheet and tells me to get in. He walked us out a bit and then he jumped in. We scooted out of the launch area before I could say "stop, I want to get off!" As soon as we cleared the breakwater, we were in it and CG had me drop the centerboard and off we went. I handled the main sheet and CG worked the tiller and we were flying! In a very short time we were at the little atolls that are about 2 miles out from the shore we had just left. CG rounded up to the wind, I stepped off with the bow line and pulled us to shore. We tied off on some mangrove roots and then walked around in the warm shallow water. It was an amazing feeling looking to the west across the Gulf while standing in the middle of Florida Bay. It was a perfect day. Blue sky, turquoise colored water; the warm breeze-it was perfect. We took off our life jackets and set them on the rather inhospitable beach and we dug into our bag of treats. We had some fruit, snack bars and some water. I took off my wet shorts and tied them to a mangrove branch to dry out. We wandered along the shore,looking for shells and then we saw the sign. The sign telling us that landfall on any shore in the Florida Bay was VERBOTTEN. We packed our stuff and headed for the boat. At this time we were downwind of the condo and there was a bit of a current running. We decided we would take some tacks across the bay and work our way upwind before falling off to make landfall at the launch ramp. As we were trying to push off from shore, CG had hold of the bowline, I got in the boat and shifted my weight the wrong way just as the wind gusted, the boat went over and dumped me rather unceremoniously, into Florida Bay. It took a few minutes to get the boat righted because the Captain couldn't stop laughing. Anyway, no worse for the wear we manage to push off and in just seconds we are zooming back across the bay. We worked pretty hard at keeping the boat pointed high and now we were hitting the chop and were getting drenched pretty steadily. Or I should say I was getting drenched prettysteadily since the Captain, at the tiller, managed to stay a lot drier. It was magic for the next hour or so we sailed the bay. The boat took the upwind banging pretty good and the Captain and I soon learned how to shift our weight to help with powering through the one foot chop and to keep the boat moving fast. On our last tack, because we had worked our way so far upwind, we were able to fall off and ease the mainsail a bit. Now we were heeling and moving fast and it was magic. This is what you miss on a big boat. There is an elemental connectedness with the wind, the boat and the water that I have missed. Yes, I get this feeling on the big boats but this is the stripped down, unplugged version of that. We're flying along, Captain Grumpy works the tiller and I work the mainsheet and use my weight and we hardly have to think about it or talk about it,it's just happening without thought or effort. I can reach my hand down into the warm blue green waters and feel how the tiniest shift of my weight or the attitude of my body brings an immediate response from the boat. This is what I miss on my big boats, the boat talking back to me like this. The Captain plotted our course well and as we head back to the ramp we are on a reach as we pass the breakwater and CG tells me to haul the centerboard and get ready to step off. About this time I notice there are at least a half dozen people on the beach watching us come in. I say a prayer that we don't give them too good of a show. As I raise the centerboard, the Captain heads up, the boat slows, the sail stalls and we drift perfectly to the ramp. I calmly step out (like I've done this a million times), take the bow line and pull us into shore. It was perfect.
